Event 12 was the last tournament on the 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open schedule before the $300,000 Guarantee Championship kicks off on Thursday. It brought out a bunch of familiar faces and it ended with John Pishos defending his 2015 WPO Event 12 title for a $3,875 payout.

The 95 entries in the $150 Turbo No Limit Hold’em tournament surpassed last year’s numbers as well as the $10,000 guaranteed prize pool. Seminole Hard Rock Tampa ambassador Wally Maddah was the last player to jump in, after bubbling the Seniors Classic Rocker event, but he did not play a part in the end.

The last ten players earned a piece of the $11,400 prize pool and they wasted no time getting there after registration closed. It was a fast, one-handed money bubble and there were some familiar faces at the final table beside Pishos including Alex Ivan, John Ryan, Onder Ekinci, and Andrew Phillips (son of Event 8 Turbo winner Alan Phillips).

They dropped out one after another in quick succession until Pishos was heads up with a commanding chip lead against Helge Wallem. Wallem tried several times to make a dent in Pishos’ chip stack but it didn’t take long for Pishos to finish it off and give him another WPO Event 12 title.

“I won this tournament last year?” was Pishos’ only laughing comment when asked how it felt to win it back-to-back.

It was a dominant run in the fast-paced game and Pishos earned his second career Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open title.

While the Rockers Classic final table was playing out, the Turbo event ran right past it and settled on an outright winner. The final table featured several regular faces including Alex Ivan, Odner Ekinci, and John Ryan but it was John Pishos dominating the final table to win back-to-back title in the Winter Poker Open Event 12 Turbo event.

While we’re keeping most of our attention on the Classic Rocker final table, the Turbo tournament quickly hit a final table of their own. Onder Ekinci is the leader with defending champ John Pishos not far behind.

The tournament drew 95 entries generating an $11,400 prize pool which bested the $10,000 guarantee. Each member of the 10-handed final table is paid at least $262. The winner, meanwhile, pockets $3,875 along with a Seminole Hard Rock Tampa guitar trophy.

We mentioned Scot “Twitch” Anderson in the previous post, back in the poker room after a long night/early morning at the Event 10 final table. Brandon Byars was also a part of that three-way deal along with declared winner Manny Minaya and he joined in the Turbo before the first break.

Byars has wasted no time running up his starting stack. We caught the tail end of the action when he called an all-in with the board reading .

“You have a queen?” he opponent.

“Oh no, you don’t!” was the next thing he said after Byars tabled .

He had to dodge the last two queens in the deck against and the river gave him a big double up. The hand moved Byars up to 80,000 from his 20,000 starting stack while his opponent walked away, not realizing he still have 11,000 in play (he was eventually tracked down to return).

Scott “Twitch” Anderson is having himself a nice little run over the last few days. He’s played in two tournaments this week and final tabled both. Anderson picked up $24,730 for fifth place in the big, multi-day Event 7 and followed that up with another $1,557 as part of a three-way deal in the $150 Double Green Chip Bounty last evening.

The Turbo Event 12 field continues to move towards last year’s number of 86. We expect to get there before registration closes in 90 minutes and start whittling down the field from there.

Wayne Brown is a regular face in our SHRP and looking for his second career SHRP trophy. Brown’s sole tournament win came in the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Omana/8 event. He came close to earning another earlier this series when he finished seventh in the $250 Big Stack Event 6.

Less than an hour into the Turbo event and they are already putting out antes. This promises to flow fast until the end. We have 45 entries in the game and we expect a steady stream to the re-entry desk.

Alan Phillips knows a little something about winning Turbo tournaments. He was the big stack standing at the end of Sunday’s Event 8 Turbo for $4,900 and he’s back again today. That win continued a nice recent run for Phillips. He won $360 Big Stack event during the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” and followed that up with a fourth-place finish in WPO Event 6.

Tuesday evening offers up the last tournament of the series before the $300,000 Guarantee Winter Poker Open Championship kicks off on Thursday. And this one will move along at a brisk pace.

Event 12 is a $150 buy-in Turbo tournament with a $10,000 guaranteed prize pool and plenty of action for all getting involved.

Players sit down to 20,000 deep starting stacks and play 15-minute levels throughout the day. Late registration is available until the start of Level 13, around 9:30pm, and unlimited re-entries are available during that time.

Cards go in the air at 6pm and we’ll keep an eye on both tournaments running in the poker room.